We elicit human conditional punishment types by conducting experiments. We find that their punishment decisions to an individual are on average significantly positively proportional to other members’ punishment decisions to that individual.

Laws consist of two components: the ‘obligations’ they express and the ‘incentives’ designed to enforce them. In this paper we run a public good experiment to test whether or not obligations have any independent effect on cooperation in social dilemmas. The results show that, for given...

We study a version of the Colonel Blotto game where valuations across battlefields are heterogeneous and asymmetric. These games can exhibit unique pure strategy equilibria, some of which are non-monotonic with respect to the battlefield valuations. We test our theoretical predictions in the...

We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium, and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibriumwe...

This paper both theoretically and experimentally studies the properties of plurality and approval voting when the majority is divided as a result of information imperfections. The minority backs a third alternative, which the majority views as strictly inferior. The majority thus faces two...

Two groups of voters of known sizes disagree over a single binary decision to be taken by simple majority. Individuals have different, privately observed intensities of preferences and before voting can buy or sell votes among themselves for money. We study the implication of such trading for...

Trust is fragile. It is hard to build but easy to destroy. In this paper, we explore the fragility of trust in a stylized laboratory environment. We ask whether transgression outside a direct send-and-return relationship destroys trust and, if so, whether a competition against outsiders or an...

We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of Ex Ante Vote-Trading Equilibrium, identify weak sufficient conditions for existence, and construct one such...

This paper tests the ability of an exogenous targeting instrument to induce compliance when the principal cannot observe the actions of individual agents. A number of papers show that although these instruments are able to induce groups to the target outcome, they are not able to induce...

We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium, and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibriumwe...